It was on 15th April 2012 that the online poker world was rattled and left changed beyond recognition. The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) shut down the online poker websites of Pokerstars, Fulltilt Poker, Ultimate Bet (www.ub.com) and Absolute Poker by seizing their domains. Banking violations were the reasons cited for the shutdown since online poker gambling is allowed in the USA.
It changed the face of online poker in the US forever since in return for getting their domains back, Pokerstars.com and fulltiltpoker.com had to officially block all US players from playing their real cash games. Absolute Poker and UB couldn’t work out any deals and fizzled away. Their domains are still seized and they have stopped operations. While it is speculated that Absolute Poker will work out a deal but Ultimate Bet bubble has completely gone burst. The UB story was different in the sense that they gave up and decided to start ubpoker.eu. That also went down the tubes some time later and both these sister websites are now closed.
The result of these shutdowns was that there are very few online poker rooms now that allow US players to play real cash games. Notable amongst those are Lock Poker, Carbon Poker and Bovada Poker.